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1. Your UX history lesson in Fintech
Financial technology has been around for quite some time, going back to the 19th century, with the actual term ‘Fintech’ emerging in the late 20th century.
Going a bit further down the line, smart phones and mobile internet surged in the 21st century. The real boost for Fintech however, came after the 2008 financial crisis. This event opened the door to innovation.
People and small businesses found fresh ways to access capital such as: P2P lending and crowdfunding.
In recent years, new products developed: from mobile payments, digital currencies to decentralised finance(DeFi), forever disrupting the flow of the traditional financial system.
How many challenges has this industry faced so far ?
From regulatory compliance, scalability, cybersecurity demands to user adoption and education; these all shaped Fintech’s trajectory.
How does a business tackle these issues without losing ground?
Let’s take for instance the example of Revolut. Traditional banks made cross border payments a painfully slow and opaque process. Users would bump into high fees, hidden rates and multi-day delays. Frustration grew and made people less willing to try new financial services.
Revolut flipped the script here. They built a digital first app which made currency exchange fast and easy, with: real rates, clear fees and a user friendly interface.
This simplicity pushed Revolut from a small startup to a global name. Based on the 2024 annual reports, the company grew from a few hundred thousand users in 2015 to over 52.5 million by end of 2024. A clear proof that this system resonated with their users. We’ll see what happens next when things don’t go as planned.
2. Would you flow with Fintech ?
No user wants to feel left behind, yet an outdated app can make you feel as if there's something missing.
Yesterday’s ease now creates anxiety and your customers are overwhelmed by complex functionality. That’s when you know that your financial app is no longer meeting your user’s needs.
Whether you’re a Fintech founder or a product owner you already know what this means for your business. Once your users lose interest, retention drops and conversion rates take a hit. Your competition moves forward while you are still struggling to catch up.
The data speaks louder than ever. According to Gitnux’ 2025 report: 70% of users abandon a digital banking or fintech app because of a poor overall customer experience, while 90% of fintech customers expect a frictionless onboarding experience.
The disconnect is real.
How do you bridge the gap?
It all starts with assessing the misalignment between your app’s strengths and what needs to be improved. We will delve into the specifics after we have a look at the ever evolving world of fintech as it is today.
As of 2025, the fintech landscape has diversified, bringing a new lens on the way financial services are delivered.
From agentic AI to embedded finance, crypto integration to cybersecurity concerns, it’s all shifting faster than you can blink.
As AI is becoming more integrated into Fintech, adoption is now on the rise. Over the past year, businesses switched from purely experimenting to actually committing.
According to research from Deloitte, organizations started investing more in digital initiatives, marking an increase from 7.5% of revenue in 2024 to 13.7% in 2025.
What about the return of investment for these businesses? Around 70% of the companies reported gains after investing in Agentic AI.
As AI is expanding across corporate finance, its broad use helps companies with financial reporting, debt management, fraud detection, credit risk assessment and scenario analysis.
A perfect example to show you AI at its peak would be the fintech company Ramp,which decided to automate their identity and business verification processes. This in itself reduced application review time by 25%, making their onboarding smoother and faster.
What would you be willing to try to get the same results? And how would you go about it?
Let’s chat a bit more about ways in which you too can improve your metrics.
3. There’s always something new
Why would a redesign help your business? Or better question: How?
Please keep in mind that a mere UI update will not automatically fix the overall flow of interactions. Neither will automating all your internal processes.
Today’s customers expect an intuitive and reliable digital experience. While this surface level tweak might catch their eye, it will surely not help your retention rates.
As soon as the inconsistency between product, services and brand increases, the user experience becomes stale.
Stuck between keeping up with the trends and building your own brand identity?
Quite a challenge, right ?
You are navigating the digital world of innovation, while maintaining the integrity of the image your business represents. It’s a matter of priorities.
How do you add trust, security and financial literacy in the mix?
Start with the onboarding bit ! As it’s the first interaction the user has with your platform.
Focus on building a clear, secure and efficient process tailored to each user’s needs. Offer targeted guides, demos and tutorials which will help users improve their experience.
Invest in educating your customers so they feel safe using your product. Make sure everyone is well aware of the risks and benefits included.
Strip away the complexity and enable your users to perform as many operations as they can on the go. Focus on efficiency and you’ll move beyond transactional interactions. Meaningful moments are created daily, through consistency and trust.
Data driven or not, ask yourself: which metrics should I prioritize in the process?
We will focus on the 3 most influential and broadly applicable across business models: Customer Acquisition Cost(CAC) , Lifetime Value(LTV) and Monthly Recurring Revenue(MRR).
Let’s see how one of these actually works in the real world.
A 2025 case study from Rosy Finch highlighted how strategic changes and clear visibility into the customer acquisition cost, can significantly improve a business' growth.
Between software integration, marketing realignment and website redesign with a mobile first approach, MainStreet achieved a reduction of customer acquisition costs by over 99%, from $175,000 to less than $500. The results speak for themselves.
All in all, with or without these metrics, the success of your products is built in time with the help of your users. Without them the metrics would be just mere data.
Our next chapter will focus on this user experience and how it works.
4. Are we up to date or not ?
What does UX mean for you ?
User centric design gets thrown around so often that it has almost lost meaning.
Today, your user’s mental model is what shapes the success of your product. What is relevant for your customer becomes relevant for your business.
What is relevant for a Fintech user in 2025 ?
Let’s dive in.
Financial jargon might not be the cherry on top anymore, not that it ever was. When users feel confused, they fear they’ll make a financial mistake and would rather just quit the app instead. Bet on clarity this time, for the process: from onboarding to end.
Will a slow loading time or a slow KYC make a user feel safe ? Probably not. If your app feels slow or unreliable, it risks being uninstalled. This is how your competition gets the upper hand.
All in all, Fintech UX is more psychological than it is functional. Therefore, you have to make sure your users feel in control of their finances. The main focus should be on their safety and security. How do you accomplish that ?
When one hesitates during a financial task, the brain will perceive that as risk. So things such as unclear buttons, lag during KYC or confusing investment screens will trigger loss aversion. And this uncertainty becomes the fastest way to lose a customer.
Once you have these covered : clarity, speed and control your UX will improve, gradually.
How does the user- centric approach impact your revenue ?
Let’s check out a concrete example. We will have a look at one of the top neo digital banks, Salt Bank and how their UX boosted their growth.
With an astounding progress from birth to launch, Salt managed to reach 500 000 customers in just one year. Their deep expertise in design, feature integration and focus on customer care satisfaction established a complete digital banking experience.
What made them stand out in the competitive world of neo banking? Their dedication in offering digital banking services with classical call center /chat support assistance with human interaction.
With under 50 seconds response time at their care center and chats lasting less than 21 minutes, their flawless approach gathered the sympathy and respect of their users. Speed does change the game in finance.
Another core aspect worth noting is their gradual adding of features. Automatic enrollment, international transfers, cashback options and bill payments, contributed to building ease while accessing the app.
Their clear, user-friendly interface gained the user’s trust. With customers feeling on top of their financial goals, Salt is slowly becoming the future of digital neobanking in Romania.
They are now at this moment one of the few neobanks in Romania with public, up-to-date figures on user growth and deposit volume: 100 k → 250 k → 330 k → 400 k → 500 k in roughly a year, plus over 228,974,424 USD held in accounts.
What happens when you are designing an app mainly for the hype ?
Have you heard of Clinkle ? A company that promised to revolutionize payments yet failed to deliver.
Operating in great secrecy, from their start in 2013, instead of fostering a culture of trust and security, they launched an app which didn’t live up to their initial vision.
They went off the market as soon as they emerged.
The lesson here : think beyond trends and assess the impact before making unrealistic promises.
Talking about promises, what do your design practices tell us about your business?
More than you would think. But for now, we are just here to show you the how.
5. Practice makes it better
Whether UX matters or not in Fintech…that is for you to decide.
Used intentionally for a desired outcome, it becomes a business strategy.
There are practices that can drag your product down and practices that will enhance its value. How do you choose what works best for you?
Take PrimeBank for instance, a neobank start-up we worked with.
Being relatively new in the banking sector, we helped them set up a dashboard app offering a full set of features for millennials.This process changed the way a bank approaches digital strategy; see the full breakdown in our case study PrimeBank | FinTech UX Design for Moble App | Eleven Space.
Starting from scratch, when building a financial product keep in mind these 3 key elements: the design system, the dashboard itself and the user-centric design.
Using a design system, with consistent UI, predictable flows and a consistent look across devices creates a polished and reliable product.
This way you remove any suspicion regarding the reliability of the services you are delivering.
Have you looked at your dashboard lately?
Whether it’s a transfer, a loan or a trading option, users shouldn’t be forced to hunt down their financial activity. If the clutter and the lack of customization is killing your conversion rates, then you might have to rethink your design choices.
As we’ve shown previously, the user- first design in Fintech helps you avoid common pitfalls that might lead to churn. When you build emotional trust first, users are less wary in sharing their sensitive financial data.
Once you watch a digital experience growing from the ground up, your perspective changes.
Because in the end, you should not hit bypass on current trends but adapt them to fit your product’s needs. It’s just a matter of choosing growth over glitter.
This way you keep the authenticity of your brand alive. Not bending over what’s hip but assessing what does the trick(for you and for your business).
Start today! Get an UX review and design your product now!
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